1.The issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice

Who owns a media company influences the type of film made and its potential success. This is because the bigger film companies are more likely to produce bigger films that are generally more successful. These films are more likely to be successful because most of the films made follow the rules that Mark Kermode said would make the film impossible to lose money. These rules are a newsworthy budget, spectacular visuals, not to be a comedy and include a A list star. The big film companies have a lot of money meaning that they have big budgets for the films that they produce. This means that they have money to spend on different aspects of the film that will mostly likely lead the film to become very successful.An example of a big film company is Walt Disney. This is one of the most renowned film production companies in the history of the business. Walt Disney holds now hols 15.3% of the US/Canadian market share and produces very successful movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Enchanted. Walt Disney manage to create very successful and popular films and films that will always be remembered by people. Walk Disney is seen by most people as being a film company that manages to produce good family films that are loved by millions of people. The fact that Disney is so well known may be a part to play in the films success. This is because people automatically presume that Disney movies will be good so they and go and see it at the cinema because of this reason. Walk Disney also then has a lot of money to spend on new films meaning that the films that they produce have a big budget. Pirates of the Caribbean had a budget of $140,000,000, which is a big budget, and made a gross of $305,413,918 at the box office. This means that they made more than double their budget meaning that they made a big profit on the film. The film also contained A list; stars, these were people such as Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly. This film is not a comedy; it is a mix of action, adventure and fantasy. The film also has good visuals meaning that Pirates of the Caribbean meats all of the four pieces of criteria set by Mark Kermode. This may be the reason why this film was successful or it may also be the fact that Walt Disney way the company who produced the film.Another example of a big film company is Warner Bros. Pictures. Warner Bros. is the biggest player in the film industry, having 19.7% of US/Canadian market share. Warner Bros. has secured the rights to films such as Harry Potter, Superman, Batman and Star Wars. All of these films are really popular and well known. Because of the success of these films, this may mean that people expect the films that Warner Bros. create are going to be as good. This may make the public go and see the film that they are releasing no matter what it is.The Harry Potter series has 8 films in it and each of them has been popular. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, which was released in 2001, had a budget of $125,000,000 and made a gross of $317,557,891 at the box office. This is a lot of money for the film to make and shows how popular the film was. As the films were released one after one, they became more popular and continued to make a profit from each film. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was the last film released, in 2011, and had a budget of $125,000,000 making a gross of $380,955,619 at the box office. By this time, the main actors, Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint had become A list starts through the Harry Potter films. The films had become very popular and a lot of people went to see this film because they knew it was the last one that was going to be made. This means that all of the Harry Potter fans would have went and saw this at the cinema because this is the last chance that they would get.An example of a smaller film company is Lionsgate. Lionsgate have released films such as Brothers, Gamer and More Than a Game. These are films that have not been that popular and have therefore not made a profit. This may be because the film was not made by one of the big companies and therefore the film is presumed to not be that good.Brothers had a budget of $26,000,000. This is a low budget films so the film would have not had that much money to work with anyway. This is already missing one of the points made by Mark Kermode as this is not a big budget. The gross that Brothers made at the box office is only $1,028,334, which is not a lot of money at all compared to the amount of money other films have managed to make. The main actors are Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire who none of are classed as A list stars.Gamer had a budget of $50,000,000, which is a much higher budget than Brothers had but is still classed as a low budget. However, the film only managed to make a gross of $20,488,579 at the box office. Gamer includes actors such as Gerald Butler, Micheal C. Hall and Ludacris. These are actors that are not classed as A list so are not as famous as actors that have been in more popular films.

The Avengers Assemble was produced by Marvel and distributed by Disney. Disney is one of the big six and is well known for producing big films. This film had a budget of $207,438,708 which therefore classes this film as a high budget film. The film managed to gross a total of $623,279,547 which is more than triple the budget. Disney are known for producing films that have a high budget and because of Disney being so well known, they were able to get a lot of publicity around the film so that a lot of people would have heard and been excited about the film. This meant that more people were likely to go and see the film because they thought it was good or because they are already a big fan of Marvel films.2The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketingThe Avengers, is a 2012 American superhero film based on the Marvel comics superhero team of the same name, produced by Marvel studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sixth instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.The Avengers Assemble: the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing: Who publicised and distributed the film? How did these companies work together? What roles did they undertake?A Five-Year Marketing Plan: Avengers benefited from something no movie had before: It has been marketed to audiences since Iron Man first appeared at Comic-Con in 2007. When that movie became a surprise hit in May 2008 with a $98.6 million opening weekend, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige quickly unveiled his intention to make four more movies -- The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America -- all of which would lead to a giant team-up. Avengers characters like Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) popped up in those movies, and the original Iron Man featured a coda segment devoted to the Avengers initiative. At the time, only comic-book fans understood the reference."They established character equity that, when combined, makes one and one equal a lot more than two," notes Disney distribution head Dave Hollis. "This is Feige's six-year vision to get to a place where people would want to watch these characters assemble. "Grouping several heroes in one movie also primed a wider swath of moviegoers to show up opening weekend. Not a fan of Chris Evans as Captain America? How about Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man or Chris Hemsworth as Thor? "Every movie that they released was prepping for this one," says a top producer. "That's never been done before, and it was ingenious."The Avengers audience breakdown -- 50 percent over 25, 40 percent female, 55 percent couples, 24 percent families -- shows the film's wide appeal. That's a testament to casting. Fortysomething leading men Downey, Renner and Mark Ruffalo signaled to adults that the movie wasn't just for kids. Hemsworth, 28, and Evans, 30, appealed to young adults, and Samuel L. Jackson, 63, has a huge African-American fan base. At the same time, colorful costumes helped sell the movie to youngsters.

3The technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange; 3D (3 dimensional)3D Media is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception. Derived from stereoscopic photography, it is when two cameras are used to film a scene from two different perspectives it is also a computer generated image. Special projection hardware is used to complete the illusion of depth such as glasses to use during the film. 3d film are not limited to just feature film, it can be adapted to be used in different aspects of media. 3D Film was introduced in 1915 however it did not see much success until the 21st century where its popularity grew as it was used in large block buster films, culminating in the unprecedented success of 3D presentations of Avatar in December 2009.Blu RayBlu-ray Disc (BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It is capable of showing high definition 1080p resolution; much greater than the original DVDs which could only show 480p resolution. Another feature is the improved audio quality.Internet StreamingInternet streaming is multimedia that is streamed by a receiver while being delivered by a provider. A client media player can begin to play or watch the chosen media before the content is fully downloaded.Downloadable Content Downloadable Content is additional content for video games and films, such as film soundtracks and character accessories on specific games. This could be on ITunes or Google Play Store or any other downloadable content provider.How they affected the distribution of Avengers AssembleAll these types of multimedia distributors had a large effect on the success of Marvels Avengers Assemble. In 3D alone in the opening weekend the movie made a gross of $108,000,000, and a further $101,155,313 from DVD sales and $114,842,253 in Blu Ray sales add this together and you get $323,997,566 which is approximately 1/5 of the final gross for the movie meaning that they more than broke even with the budget just through these methods, showing that these types of distribution are just as vital to the success of a movie as the basic method. And the movie is still making money to this day through downloadable content and Internet streaming so they are a sustainable source of income as well as an easy one.

4The significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences; Since films were first released, film companies have had to alter the ways that they audiences are able to watch their films significantly. Common ways of viewing films now are things such as Video on demand, DVDs/Blu Ray, online streams, downloading films as well as the typical visiting the cinema. These ways generally tend to be cheap which is important as many families dont have the money to all go to the cinema so for a considerably lower price they can rent a film via websites such as Netflix or Lovefilm or they could purchase the DVD/Blu Ray from a shop. Avengers Assembled was released at cinemas in both 2D and 3D at the cinema. It was then released on DVD and Blu-Ray. As it was a large budget film it wasnt released on VOD websites like Netflix or Lovefilm, this is usually used to make extra profit on films that dont do very well. The film could be released on a VOD website in the future when it has begun to stop making profit. This is a good way that big film companies continue to make profit on older films.

5The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketingMarvels avengers assemble was produced and was the biggest films of 2012, marvel is owned by Disney so therefore this automatically tells us and big budget as they are one of the big six. Disney which own marvel always or so have of the time have big budget films, the amount of money that went into the avengers was 220,000,000 and for a movie to make twice the money and cost of the film, avengers assemble on gross profit made $623,279,547 which is well over double the production. Marvel were in association with paramount pictures, this means that the big six work together to make and produce films this is an example of avengers assemble. This shows the size of the company Disney a sit has paramount another one of the big six to help in the production and to gain half dozen of A list stars, this represents how much power big holly wood movie companies have over the way films are made and how they are done with which companies. Other small companies were involved like BLT communications in which they designed and created the posters yet they werent credited or deemed to be important enough to be put within the film production or for the exhibition of the movie itself, furthermore this shows that small companies work along side the big six to help produce the movies but dont take much credit and some arent even credited for doing something as important as the marketing. This shows that small companies work with bigger global companies to assist publishing and distributing the movie, the size is represented as they get all the credit for a good film and the smaller franchises have non credit for there work in sound effects, poster design etc. this demonstrates again the power that large global companies have a lot of power and can use this size to do what they want. Overall the importance of cross media convergence is vital to film production as its all the small companies working together to produce posters, sound tracks etc. and larger global companies to work together and produce together which gets a larger audiences due to the size and popularity of the big six.

6The issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutionsFilm promotion is the practice of promotion specifically in the film industry, and usually occurs in coordination with the process of film distribution. Sometimes called the press junket or film junket, film promotion generally includes press releases, advertising campaigns, merchandising and media, and interviews with the key people involved with the making of the film, like actors and directors. As with all business it is an important part of any release because of the inherent high financial risk; film studios will invest in expensive marketing campaigns to maximize revenue early in the release cycle. Marketing budgets tend to equal about half the production budget. Publicity is generally handled by the distributor and exhibitors. The Avengers Assemble was marketing in the USA as the avengers and this was when it was first promoted at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, during which a teaser trailer narrated by Samuel L. Jackson was shown followed by an introduction of the cast. It was also presented at the 2011 New York comic con that featured new footage and a panel discussion including producer Kevin Feige and several cast members. The following month, a teaser trailer that was meant to be the post-credits scene of Captain America: The First Avenger was briefly leaked online. The trailer, which debuted exclusively on iTunes Movie Trailers, was downloaded over 10 million times in its first 24 hours, breaking the website's record for the most-viewed trailer. This record was surpassed by the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, which was downloaded more than 12.5 million times in its first 24 hours. A second full-length trailer was released on iTunes in February 2012, reaching a record 13.7 million downloads in 24 hours and this was obviously a type of marketing that reached worldwide audiences including Europe, china and USA. In January 2012, Marvel Studios held a global Twitter chat. The 30-minute live tweeting event featured writer/director Joss Whedon, cast members Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston and Clark Gregg and a 10-second tease of the 30-second Super Bowl commercial that would air during Super Bowl XLVI in February. Other types of global media include the use of, merchandise, trailers found online video games and many more. It is shown throughout media that the USA and UK mainly use online means of marketing whereas china and European countries follow ideas from trailers, reviews and online screenings of the film. They are also interested in the A-list stars that are well known globally that the Chinese people will know about. A big part of the marketing of English speaking films is to make sure that there are appropriate subtitles for countries that cannot understand the language. Avengers being a large budget film and having lots of marketing and press was bound to have large amounts of money funded into the quality subtitling of the Avengers Assemble.

7The ways in which the candidates own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.Firstly I think that the influence big companies have on the types of film made and its success is huge, a prime example of this is if you compare Dredd to The Avengers Assemble it is clear that due to the sizes of the companies producing these films their success potential differed, The Avengers Assemble for example was released on the 4th of May 2012 (USA) but marketing however started when the film was promoted at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, during which a teaser trailer narrated by Samuel L. Jackson was shown followed by an introduction of the cast. This started to create hype for the film approximately two years before the release of the film, there was then further advertising closer to the release. All of this advertising led to the fact that The Avengers Assemble took $1.518 billion at the box office. When compared to Dredd (produced by smaller companies), which only made $41milion. In these figures you can clearly see that the fact that The Avengers Assemble is produced by large companies (namely Marvel, which is in turn owned by Disney). I think that the main advantage that being made by a big company brings is their ability to invest a large amount in the budget; this is also shown in the Dredd vs The Avengers Assemble comparison as Dredd had $45milion and The Avengers Assemble had a comparatively massive budget of $220milion. In my opinion the big companies only have to follow a few guidelines to make a film a success (Mark Kermode believes that big budget films only need to comply with: having a newsworthy budget, spectacular visuals, not be a comedy and has to include an 'A list' star), whereas lower budget films have to do more things to ensure success.In my opinion going to the cinema is the best possible current way to enjoy films for the majority of people due to the fact that some films are better in 3D, as the majority people generally dont have 3D TVs in their houses. However I do think that the increasing availability for DVD/Blu-rays as well as digital downloads/streaming, specifically how quickly after the films cinema release. For example The Avengers Assemble was released to cinemas on the 4th of May 2012 (USA) and it was then released to DVD/Blu-Ray on the 12th of September 2012 (USA). This represents a significantly quicker turnaround than for it was for say James Bond Casino Royale, which was released in cinemas on the 17th of November 2006 (USA) and took an incredible 8 months to release on DVD on the 13th of March (2007) (USA). This decrease in time allows people that otherwise wouldnt be able to see the film due to financial restraints to buy the DVD before the hype wears off. No matter how fast the cinema to DVD/Blu-Ray release time is, I still maintain that the best way to enjoy certain films is to visit them at the cinema, as I said before this is most relevant to films with good 3D elements. This was especially evident in The Avengers Assemble as just over half of all sales came from 3D tickets. There are however added benefits to buying the DVD/Blu-Ray or digital download, one of these is the fact that you get the extras and additional scenes bundled.